Loki Please Leave My Office Now
by Huyensmom
Summary: I took my little Lego Loki figure into my office, but didn't know that the real Loki came with him. Let me tell you, Loki can wreak havoc in a school.


Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/1111386.

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Gen Fandom: Thor/Loki - Fandom Relationship: Loki/Original Female Character(s), Thor/Original Female Character(s) Character: Loki, Thor, Original Characters Additional Tags: Office Comedy Stats: Published: 2013-12-31 Words: 3179 Loki, Please Leave my Office. Now.

by SBB

Summary

I took my little Lego Loki figure into my office, but didn't know that the real Loki came with him. Let me tell you, Loki can wreak havoc in a middle school.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

I've read a great many stories that start the way this one does – an unsuspecting person buys a small figure made of stone or clay, brings it home with her, only to find that this little figure, this representation of someone, or something, has brought home with it something out of the ordinary, something completely unexpected. It's brought some kind of spirit or presence that starts acting out, and causes strange and unwelcome events. I read one story where the object was inhabited by a jinn, another was inhabited by a small demon. We've all seen the movie where all the objects in an entire museum come alive at night. That's all very well, and the stories are entertaining, but they're just stories, right? If one were to bring home such an object, one would expect it to have come from Mesopotamia, or an ancient Native American grave site, somewhere old, somewhere where that creepy things happen. It never occurred to me that I would buy a Lego figure from Ebay ($4.79 plus shipping), and have it wreak havoc in my life. How stupid of me, just because it's plastic and had to be put together (I lost the cape), didn't make a particle of difference. I taped his feet to the top of my computer monitor in my office to cheer me up and get me through the long days. Why should I have been surprised when my large public middle school, where I've worked for many years, went from well behaved and well managed to a nut house practically overnight? My little Lego figure of Loki caused a lot of trouble, and I was simply unprepared.

The first thing indicator was that my little Loki moved around my office. I know that he was firmly taped to the top of my monitor, but the first morning after he arrived, I found him standing companionably next to my armored bear figure on the book case. OK, back to the monitor. The next day, he was sitting on my phone receiver, and on the third day, I really thought I'd lost him, till I found him sitting nonchalantly on the top of the picture frame of the Gryffindor coat of arms. I questioned the people I worked with, and every one of them looked at me kindly, with a little concern, and told me no, they hadn't been playing with my Lego Loki. I believed them – if someone were going to play with things, I thought it might be something different every night: R2D2, Minnie Mouse, Harry, Ron, or Hermione, the jackalope, or any of my assorted toys collected over the years.

After a few days, Loki stayed firmly taped to the top of the monitor, and I was relieved to think this stupidity was over. Wrong. That's when things started happening in the building. First, we had a series of unexpected fire alarms go off. Now everyone knows that when this happens, we have to evacuate 800 kids and staff members, disrupt everything, the fire department comes, checks out the building, and we all go back inside. After the third false alarm in three days (one was during a heavy down pour), we stopped evacuating, and they looked for short circuits in the wiring. All was calm for a few days. Loki did move from the monitor to the top of my daughter's second grade picture, but that seemed pretty ordinary by now.

The next week, two days in a row, the water went off in the building. When this happens, they have to call the busses and send all the kids home because the sprinkler system won't work, which causes a big danger if there's a fire. This really messed things up. One of those evenings was the night of the band concert, and our custodians had spent a lot of time setting up chairs in the cafeteria that all had to be moved back the next morning. This is not even to mention the frustration and inconvenience caused to the band members, teachers, parents, and everyone else involved.

The water went back on and stayed on, but then, all in one morning, every single math teacher in the building got so sick with flu like symptoms that none of them could come to school. As luck would have it, there were no substitutes available, and the other teachers had to cover math classes during their planning periods. This went on an entire week, and the faculty's nerves were pretty well shot by the end of the week, not even thinking about the poor math teachers.

One more week and things settled down, except that Loki made a trip to my ceiling vent and was there the entire day before I found him. His feet were taped to the vent, and he was hanging awkwardly upside down. His horned helmet almost got lost when I finally rescued him, but it was inexplicably inside of one of my shoes that I had taken off to get up on the chair.

I could go on and on, but I'll just make a list of what happened next. We had 8 straight days of telephone bomb threats, which are taken very seriously, and everyone spends at least two hours outside. The power went out in the middle of eighth grade lunch, and the eighth graders lost no time in initiating a massive food fight. There were no suspensions because no one could see who threw anything. Did I mention we have no windows in the cafeteria? It was not long after that terrible day that our beloved principal and assistant principal, men who had worked well and happily together for years, had a screaming fight in front of a sixth grade assembly, and the assistant principal almost decked the principal. It seemed to be about a box of missing binders. No one really could blame them, every adult in the building was about to go to pieces. Then, we took delivery of 800 standardized tests, which have to be guarded as if they were the gold in Fort Knox, and the next morning, after they'd been locked in a special and secure room, we found that 200 tests were missing, and the rest were torn up and thrown all over the room. This meant investigation by the State Board of Education, and the jobs of several people, including the principal's and mine, were on the line. That same day, every single bus was late due to mechanical problems, and all the administrators, who were about to be investigated by the state, had to stay till 6:00 until substitute busses could take the kids home.

By this time, we had parents withdrawing their children from our school because their children were so stressed, and four faculty members went out on long term leaves of absence because their nerves were shattered. Our principal and assistant principal were suspended from their jobs due to the loss of the test books, and strangers came in to run the building. I narrowly escaped suspension in the test book debacle.

Finally, it dawned on me, months later than it should have, that the cause of all this chaos and mischief was none other than the wandering Loki in my office. Since when should I think it normal that toys get up and move aroud on their own? Did I think I was living in a live action version of Toy Story? When I suggested this to our secretary, she burst into tears telling me that if I were going to crack up, that we'd both have to go on extended leave. She'd had it.

OK. Now what? I went into my office where Lego Loki was standing innocently on top of my computer monitor, just where he should be. The painted scowl on his face looking just as it always had, very grumpy. I pulled him off the monitor, held him in my hands, and said, "Loki! This is it, I've figured it out, and all of this, every bit of it, is your fault! I should have known when you started wandering around my office. You're a Lego figure about an inch high. You shouldn't have been wandering anywhere! WHAT IS IT?"

The voice of a cultured Englishman spoke in my ear, and I was so startled that I nearly fell down. The Lego Loki was no longer in my hand, and the six foot two real Loki, wearing eighteen inches of horned golden helmet, stood right behind me. I whirled around, and as I'm short, I had to lean my head back to look at his face. He was no longer scowling; he was laughing at me. "Well darling, it's your entirely your fault. I couldn't be expected just to leave things as they were after the way you'd treated me. I have to admit I've had a wonderful time watching your precious school fall apart. If you hadn't figured it out by next week, you were going to have a very real fire."

I was afraid that'd I'd gotten a concussion, didn't remember anything about a blow to the head, and was having hallucinations. With helmet, he was almost 8 feet tall, wearing his full battle dress, with armor, and was a very large person. My office isn't much more than a glorified broom closet and he took up about the whole room. He was also removing all the oxygen from the air, as near as I could tell. I was having trouble breathing, and my heart rate was probably over 150.

"What?! What the hell are you saying? What did I ever do to you? You must be crazy, causing all these problems in a school." I had to resist the urge to slap him.

"Indeed, Susan, it has been suggested that I am unbalanced, but that's only by my detractors. I told you that it's your fault, and it will continue until you fix the problem. The incidents at your school will grow worse and worse. It's your choice. Fix the problem, or have your school fall apart, and lose your job. I can't answer for how many people may be injured in the fire, because I have no idea how competent your fire department people are."

Leaning my head back, I looked at him. He was still smiling broadly; it was evil smile, a smile of pure malicious joy. He was really enjoying this.

"OK, what is it I'm supposed to have done? (I knew that the next stop for me was the psycho ward, I was talking to an 8 foot tall god, dressed all in green and gold, who was definitely not there. It was my turn for extended leave, and probably forced retirement.) Please tell me and I'll do whatever you require of me. Please, Loki."

"You really don't know what you did, what you've been doing? You have displayed me to all who come in your office _without my cape._ No one would be disrespectful enough to display Thor without his cape. But me? You just left me up there, half dressed. Not only that, but you threw my cape away."

"I didn't know what was in the tiny white box that came in the package with you, so I threw it away. I'm so sorry. How can I get you another cape?"

"As there are no Asgardian tailors in your realm, you will simply have to make one yourself. I assume you can obtain the materials?"

"Yes, Loki, I can and I will. What if after I make the cape, I take you away from this school? You can't like it here very much. You can't even see outside from this room. What do you think of that?"

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, his mouth grim. "Where would you take me? Oh no, I can't trust you to take me anywhere. You'll make me a new cape, and I'll stay right here. If you make more mistakes, I'll know exactly what to do." He smiled again, as if he'd just invited me out to a lovely dinner, a delicious prospect.

"OK, Loki, here you'll stay." My phone rang, and with a jump; I picked it up and answered. My new boss told me he needed to speak to me, and would be in my office in about 5 minutes.

"Loki, please leave my office. Now. My boss is coming, and aside from the strangeness of his meeting a Norse god in my office, there just isn't room for the three of us. Or for the two of us, for that matter."

"And just where do you suggest I go?"

"Can't you go back to being an inch tall and stand back up on my computer monitor?"

"I cannot. I will not. I won't until you have my new cape for me." He smiled lazily, his eyes twinkling, no rush necessary.

"Loki, the one inch tall cape, or the six foot two cape?"

"I think you'd better make one of each, just to teach you a lesson. You should make a couple of spares as well."

"Loki! My boss is about to walk in the door. Get out of my office!" Loki laughed, and instantly vanished just as my boss walked through the door.

"Susan, "my boss said, "I have to tell you, I've had a very trying and unusual day."

"You have no idea, sir. I completely understand." I felt rather than heard Loki's laughter. "How can I help you?"

The upshot of this story is that Loki stayed in my office almost two weeks, or at least he said he did. I don't believe for a moment he stayed there all the dull dark hours that the building was closed. He may have been tormenting someone in Asgard, or the next county, for all I knew. But when I was in my office, he was too, visible only to me. I had to talk to kids and parents, work on the computer, talk on the phone, and do all the other things my job required. Loki especially enjoyed distracting me while I was using the computer; it slowed thing up a lot. Occasionally he would wave to me from across the cafeteria after throwing a few French fries, and sometimes he'd sit in on staff meetings, but I think he found them very dull. He only came to two, and both times he caused the principal's carefully put together notes to scatter everywhere, twice. Every once in a while I'd dart into the lady's room only to find him there adjusting his helmet in the mirror. I pointed out that he could use the men's room, but he countered that it was nowhere near as nice, considerably dirtier, and he wouldn't be able to startle me in there. It was a long two weeks.

I went to the fabric store and bought expensive green fabric, after discussing with the lady in the store how it would drape (for a costume party, I said). I didn't own a sewing machine, so I had to buy one, and told my daughter and husband that I was making costumes for the school play. I don't think for a minute that either of them believed me, but they went along. They were both afraid I was cracking under the strain, and they were close to being right. I also made another order from Ebay.

When the capes were done, I took them to school for Loki's inspection; I was terrified that he wouldn't approve of them. I was equally terrified that I'd made the capes for a hallucination, but I thought I'd better be safe than sorry. After all, my job was on the line. Loki did approve the capes, and I put the tiny cape on my Lego Loki with shaking hands, and handed the real one two full-size capes and the extra little one. He bowed, and said our business together was done, at least for now. He smiled his sarcastic smile, and winked at me again.

"Oh", I said, "I made another purchase, just for you." I went into my school bag and brought out a 12" figure of Thor, complete with Mjolnir, and stood him on top of my computer monitor and fastened him down with a lot of duct tape.

Loki looked at me with fury, and I was afraid he was going to kill me on the spot (I saw him kill those dark elves). But he simply glowered at me, swore inelegantly, and disappeared.

Finally, it was all over. Thor would prevent any more trouble, and the full-sized Loki was gone. We continued with the school year as best we could, but I have to admit that sometimes I missed Loki's company. He was lovely to look at, when he creating chaos, and he could make a very dull afternoon very interesting. It was better he was gone, though. My principal and assistant principal came back, and things went back to normal, until one Thursday morning.

I opened my office door to find a huge blond god looking down at me, blue electric bolts traveling over the surface of his great hammer, blue eyes sparkling. If I thought Loki filled up my tiny office, I'd been wrong, this guy was truly huge, complete with red cape. With great aplomb, I said, "Uh, hello, uh Thor?" He smiled genially down at me.

"My lady", he said gently, "I hate to complain, but I find these accommodations inadequate. I have work that must be done in the Nine Realms, and though I have appreciated your hospitality, I find I must leave. It has been interesting watching you work with the children; I must complement you, you are good at your job. So, I give you my thanks, and bid you farewell."

"Thor! Don't you dare leave me alone here with Loki. You know what happened last time!"

"You must not worry, Susan, all will be well. I am convinced that my brother will behave himself; I have had many long talks with him, and have threatened him with dire consequences should he bother you again. Good-bye and good luck to you."

"Thor! Please!" But he was gone. My little Loki stood on my computer monitor looking like the child's toy that he was, the big Thor figure gone. Little Loki had his cape now, and looked far more dignified, and not quite so grumpy. So, I believed Thor, and knew that all would be well, until…

Almost a year went by, and things were blissfully dull and ordinary. I walked in my office one morning, to find my Lego Loki figure standing on top of my pencil cup. OK... I picked him up and looked at the little figure in my hand and said, "You know what Loki? I'm not making you anymore capes, and this time, we're going to do things my way!" As I live and breathe, I swear that little face smiled and winked at me.

End Notes

The author is a school counselor at a large middle school. Of course, she knows that she doesn't need the God of Mischief to make a middle school an insane place to work.

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!


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